Four portraits of the Bard. Clockwise from top left, the Sanders portrait, thought to have been done in 1603 by John Sanders; the new Cobbe portrait; the Chandos portrait so named because it was once in the possession of the Duke of Chandos; and, finally, from the late 1660s this one by the Dutch-born artist Gerard Soest
Taken from the Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1160423/Is-true-face-Bard-Shakespeare-painting-surviving-portrait-painted-life.html
Taken from the Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1160423/Is-true-face-Bard-Shakespeare-painting-surviving-portrait-painted-life.html
3 comments:
The Soest portrait is not at all how I would have imagined him. He's very pasty-looking. I think he (if it is he) comes off far better in the Sanders'.
Kat
I am pleased to consider how we appear, so differently, to Others. There is a certain delight to entertaining the idea that we have the opportunity to be seen as Someone completely unique, to each Observer. Perhaps there is hope for Me in a variety of perspectives. [smile]
Lovingly ...
If you look closely, the faces of all four men in these paintings the same lip shape and bone structure in cheek and eye-sockets. Not only that their faces are shaped the same, as well.
It is possible all four paintings are of the same person at different places in his life. I think the first one--a portrait by someone who might have known him closely--who was not an "expert" in painting, could possibly have painted him as he was, not as painters were supposed to paint people. Often untrained artists portray people in ways a trained artist would not.
At least it's food for thought.
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